http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com --
WHERE could Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind with bad kidneys and a
shrinking bank account, be hiding?

Well, if you were an ailing foreigner in need of sanctuary and free medical
treatment, it's obvious where you would turn: America. Thanks largely to
politicians who just can't say no to ethnic special interests, we have become
the land of the limitless health-care handout for "undocumented immigrants."

Just before Christmas, the Arizona state Legislature approved nearly $3
million in public funds to cover kidney dialysis treatment and cancer
chemotherapy for illegal aliens. Meanwhile, many indigent senior citizens -
American citizens -- must abide by stricter limits, fewer choices, and rising
prices on everything from earpieces to walkers to pain medications under
their government health-care coverage.

It's not just border states that have been hit hard

.
In North Carolina, the Medicaid emergency services program averages 221 new
cases involving aliens every month-a large number of whom are illegal,
according to one state official. Last year, those services cost taxpayers
$31.9 million.

In Chicago, one hospital alone is footing a $650,000 bill this year for organ
and stem cell transplants (plus post-care treatment) for three illegal alien
children. The hospital will receive no federal or state reimbursement for the
care-which it is forced by federal law to provide when "undocumented"
patients show up at the emergency room. Like other medical care providers
across the country, the hospital is grappling with massive Medicaid budget
cuts that will curtail services for American citizens whose money supports
the system in the first place.

Opponents of free medical care for chronically ill illegal aliens are
naturally cast as heartless penny-pinchers. But just how much compassion for
non-citizens can this country afford? And how long will taxpayers tolerate
such unfair appropriations of money from law-abiding Americans to
law-breaking foreigners?

Dave Gorak, executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce
Immigration, notes: "Emergency medical treatment is one thing, but we just
can't leave a wide-open door and expect American taxpayers to foot the bill
all the time." Indeed, states, localities, hospitals, and clinics are
hemorrhaging financially as they struggle to treat sick illegal aliens who
exploit loopholes, evade law enforcement, and game the system to secure free
health care not available in their home countries.

Karen Johnson, a Republican legislator from Mesa, Ariz., makes the injustice
of such alien entitlement policies clear: "We have just had to cut budgets
for health care programs for U.S. citizens, and now we're being asked to give
deference to people who are not citizens. I don't understand that. We need to
take care of our own."

When Congress reformed welfare in 1996, it banned Medicaid benefits to
illegal aliens except on an "emergency" basis. The next year, Washington
earmarked $25 million in federal aid for emergency health services to a dozen
states with the largest illegal alien populations in the country. It wasn't
enough. It's never enough for those who feel entitled to that which they
don't deserve. For the past five years, welfare activists have labored
mightily to stretch the definition of "emergency" so as to render the ban
meaningless.

Once here, these lawbreakers abuse both our hospitals and our hospitality by
soaking up precious public resources, burning through charity care funds, and
even suing medical providers for giving them "substandard" care when their
tax-subsidized treatments don't work.

It's time for the feds to step up and pull the plug on interminable health
benefits for illegal aliens. The State Department should seek reimbursement
from the home countries of the most expensive, chronically ill patients. The
Immigration and Naturalization Service should get serious about deportation.
And we Americans should all stop apologizing for wanting to prevent our home
from becoming a safe haven for sickly moochers from around the
world.